"washington journal" continues. host: we want to welcome to the

program amie parnes, senior political correspondent with the hill and co-author of the book "fight: inside the wildest battle for the white house." she is co-author with nbc news political reporter jonathan allen. let's start with the opening scene of your book, a behind the scenes look at the june 27 2024 presidential debate. what do you describe as the inner circle of the democratic party watches president biden's performance? guest: we open up -- good morning and thanks for having me -- we open up with nancy pelosi in her living room watching the debate and we did that intentionally because nancy pelosi had such a major part of this period of time with joe biden and getting him out of the race. her fingerprints are all over this. we have her inside her living

room alone watching the debate and we talk about her reaction. at the same time we take you inside trim -- we take you inside jim clyburn's living room, he is having a drink, al sharpton, he is alone. all of these people, normally during these events they gather together, it is a social thing, they are all watching the debate alone. it is almost as if they knew what was about to unfold. host: what was their reaction in real-time? guest: it was not good. we show you nancy pelosi cell phone and she is getting a lot of incoming from donors and lawmakers. my phone was blowing up. i think everyone who was watching the debate could not believe what they were watching. this is the first time we really reveal -- we take you play-by-play and show you

exactly what people were hearing. there is a funny moment, anecdote were nancy pelosi is hearing from one donor john morgan and she is listening to what he has to say and he is essentially saying it is a disaster playing before everyone's eyes and she thinks she is texting her husband. in reality she is texting john morgan back and saying this is what john morgan thinks, he thinks it is a disaster. clearly she is watching and in a moment of panic as well. guest: was -- host: was the consensus that very night they needed to make an effort as a group to convince the president to leave the race? how did that come about? guest: they knew something had to happen. it was not clear at that moment what had to happen but that was the moment where the wheels started to spin and everything was in motion after that.

a lot of people including nancy pelosi -- they did not want to joe biden pushed out very quickly because they sensed that kamala harris would come in and there was a weird reaction about that as well. they wanted to take the temperature of lawmakers and other democratic operatives and see what was going on. you see how it unravels from there. host: at the time there were reports the former speaker was playing a pivotal role in convincing the president to exit the race. what did you find out about the role she was playing and what role stood former president barack obama play and george clooney? the people we heard about at the time? guest: they had very big roles. i know everyone thought barack obama was involved. he clearly was involved.

we have two calls between himself and the former house speaker nancy pelosi talking about what to do. a lot of people thought there was still time for a mini primary or an open convention and so they were testing the waters there and feeling out what some people were thinking. i think a lot of people were open to other options. we report for the first time in this book that nancy pelosi was listening, she was on a listening tour listening to a lot of her colleagues. barack obama was doing the same thing. they were trying to figure out what to do next. the money was being taken away from biden, it was a really bad chaotic scene and what we do is we play out this 24 days and take you inside what was happening. how everything evolved in real-time. host: let's talk about his opponents reaction, the

candidate president trump. his thinking at the time, you write about in the book how he and his campaign maneuvered, but what he was thinking when he is on the debate stage with him, trump could believe him. it took him some time to adjust the idea t had been right about biden. his attacks went unanswered. biden absorbed blows and did not punchack. how do i keep hitting him without coming offs an as trump thought, if i stop hitting him to viewers lose interest? he suddenly became aware of the optics of bullying a sitting president of the united states. they all thought i will go off the rails, instead he drew back. host: a very -- guest: a very un-trumpy response. a lot of people thought he would seize that moment.

they thought he would win against president biden but they did not know how bad he would be. a lot of people saying you do not want to go too far, you do not want to hammer this home, this is before they knew what would happen. he had to tweak his game plan and scale it back a little bit. a lot of people think that was the counter response we expected from the president. you can see in that moment where he says -- biden goes off the rails and talks about medicaid and the former president says "i don't even think he knows what he is talking about." host: amie parnes is co-author of the book "fight: inside the wildest battle for the white house," authored with nbc political reporter jonathan allen and she is your guest. she will take your questions in your comments about her reporting. republicans (202) 748-8001,

democrats (202) 748-8000, independents (202) 748-8002. will take your text messages at (202) 748-8003. include your first name, city, and state. you report on several episodes that signaled former president bidens cognitive decline. what are some examples? guest: about a year before the debate there is a congressional picnic held at the white house. the president comes face-to-face with represent of swalwell of california and swalwell has the kind of remind him who he is. he thinks this is odd because this is someone who he ran against in 2020 that he has to remind the president who he is. in another episode he is taking a tour of folks were visiting the white house and he wants to

take them outside. kevin mccarthy is along for the ride. is watching him and he can tell the president is not with it. jill biden is trying to stop him from doing this tour at one point but he keeps going. there are other examples. aides noticed that when he travels overseas he was met with a makeup artist. that was the first order of business each day that would cause him to miss a meeting because they were so focused on the optics of what he would look like. people also told us they noticed it was not present during certain times. we document all of this in the book. this was the first time people

felt a little liberated to talk at length about what they were seeing. when he was still the president they felt they could not talk and be as candid with us. it was an interesting glimpse about what even his advisors and aides were saying and lawmakers into contact with him. host: howdy respond to viewers who we have heard say this was -- how do you respond to viewers who we have heard say this is a cover-up by the biden administration officials who knew who should have come forward and said something to the american people because he was not capable of doing the job? guest: to their defense they say he had good moments. they point to the state of the union address last year where the president was responding to people in real-time and he delivered an incredible speech, they say. they thought he would have a similar moment during the debate.

they wanted to change the trajectory of the race and that is why they did the debate. there is that feeling among democrats that there was a bit of a cover-up and that his aides were not being candid with them about the president's cognitive mental acuity and there is the sense they should have been more candid and that could have led to someone else coming into the race earlier, if not kamala harris they could have had an open primary or a mini primary. there is a lot of anger towards the biden team and there is not much anger at biden at the former vice president that is more directed at the president and his team. host: what about the role of the

media and not talking about -- some people critical of the media -- not reporting on the president's mental condition? (202) 748-8000 i don't think -- guest: i don't think you can put all of us in a basket. i had reported about the president's age and mental acuity. i know a lot of other journalists have. the white house would often get agitated with reporters for asking those questions and threaten to cut off access. i think that was in play i think a lot of journalists were covering the story but you can only get so far when the white house is denying what we are all seeing before our eyes. host: let's go to calls, bob in massachusetts, republican, good morning. caller: good morning. there is so much here.

joe biden when he first ran for president and everybody worse changing all the voting laws and we had 20 million people that never voted before vote. in every election in the last 20 years there has not been as many voters as that one time. you can never reproduce it because it was a lie and nobody can explain that statistically impossible to get 20 million people to vote at then they do not vote again. for joe biden, they knew from the day he started running for president until the day he left office that he was mentally incapacitated. host: let's take that point. was it known from the day he started running that key did not have the mental cognitive condition to run? and to be president? guest: i think the president and

his team, his team felt like he had the ability and had a successful first term and that is why he should run again. they would often get annoyed at operatives or lawmakers who would suggest otherwise. who would say the president should step down. a lot of people saw him as a transitional president, someone who could step in and defeat donald trump and pass the torch onto another democrat. some people were taken aback when they realized he was going to run again. that is when question started to rise about his cognitive ability and whether a man who was well into his 80's could perform and continue to perform as president. there was certainly that doubt. that is why you're are seeing a lot of frustration and anger directed at his advisors who a lot of people felt should have

convinced him. the president himself was pretty stubborn and wanted to remain in office, thought he had done a good job was kind of ignored everything around him including the polling numbers that showed otherwise. host: what role did his wife play? guest: dr. jill biden wanted him to continue to run. she was one of his closest advisors in his first term. i think she was frustrated by the mounting pressure from democrats to have him leave the race. i think she felt like it was unwarranted. there is still a lot of animosity there from the biden family toward barack obama and toward nancy pelosi and other democrats trying to push him out. we have a scene in the book where the president is on a

plane with people like jim clyburn and al sharpton and he thanks them for being there for him. this is after the switch happens , but he says the one person that i will not ever forgive is nancy pelosi. host: nick in michigan. democratic color. caller: thank you so much for answering the questions. i was a strong biden second term supporter. i do not -- i do think after all of his accomplished he deserved it but watching june 27 i was mortified. my question is what was kamala harris's reaction to the debate. i remember watching rachel maddow and she acknowledged it was not a great performance. what was her actual feelings those 24 days? did she feel it was time for him to step down? guest: that is a very good question. she is watching the debate in

real-time. she was in los angeles watching it in a hotel room and we take you inside that room to find out her reaction. she was trying to be a loyal footsoldier. obviously in the days he was still at the top of the ticket. she was also caught in a weird position where she had to plan. they were saying publicly -- this is the first time we are hearing about this -- that her closest advisors were in fact planning the what if joe biden leaves the race, what we do, how do we suddenly get the democrats together and galvanize the party quickly behind her? there was a meeting we talked about that was happening that sunday joe biden does drop out, she has a meeting in her pool house at the naval observatory. she is not involved in the

beating but her closest advisors are involved in the meeting. they think it is going to happen in the next few days and they're trying to plan what would happen, how they would get the delegates, what they would do in terms of fundraising. that is happening right as the switch happens, right as the president is calling to tell her he is going to drop out of the race. it was an interesting thing. it has not been reported until now. it is in this book. host: mike in baltimore come independent. the book is "fight: inside the wildest battle for the white house." caller: morning and thanks for taking my call. we teach from schools being reliable sources in the media itself new this in 2019. they hit him in the basement. the new york post, fox news,

newsmax put this out there. now americans do not trust the media. npr, msnbc, because they hid that. i think you throw stuff out there and let people decide for themselves and then from there people can make decisions. we should not lie to people. host: amie parnes? guest: to be honest we wrote another book about the election called "lucky" in 2020 where we talked at great length about how joe biden's advisors did hide him in his basement during the pandemic. that was very much something they did. at the time it worked for him, it worked to his favor. he won in 2020. he cannot continue to do that.

his advisors did -- he did not do as many press interviews. you are seeing president trump and how available he is to media. biden was knocked at the time for not coming out, for not sitting with network anchors, for not doing podcasts. i think all this hurt him. host: summer in tennessee. democratic color. welcome -- democratic caller. welcome. caller: caller: i knew for a long time he was in cognitive decline, there was no doubt about it. i would've voted for a tuxedo rather than voted for donald trump. and no other election would i have voted for joe biden. the .4 kamala harris -- the point for kamala harris -- the d&c screwed us during hillary.

she bought her way in there. should've had bernie sanders. they screwed us with the primary. we all knew he was in cognitive decline. i voted for her the last time she ran. i had no problem with kamala harris but we should have been given a choice. host: let's take that point. guest: a lot of people, there is frustration at the democratic party, we are seeing that play out before our eyes. a lot of people think they believe -- they blame president biden for not stepping aside sooner. they thought an open primary would be in their best interest or a mini primary. there is this frustration and i think the democratic party is trying to figure out how to rebuild and what to do. i think there is a sense from a lot of people that they have lost their way and that many of

these trump voters should really be democrats and how to connect to these voters again and i think a lot of people look at messaging, the lack of messaging. in 2016 it was the same thing. we wrote about this in our book "shattered," how hillary clinton was not able to connect in the moment and did not understand the populist movement at the time. there is that same sense that democrats did not connect and were not speaking about the issues voters care about including the economy and inflation. they have to find their way back and they are trying to but it might take a cycle until they figure out who they are and what they want to be. there is a sense they have to accept what happened and admit what happened and admit they were asleep at the switch with biden. there is a reckoning happening.

it will take a long time for democrats and the party to figure out who they are and what they want to be. host: it was the leader of the democratic party? -- who is the leader of the democratic party? guest: a lot of people are trying to figure that out. people are doing interesting things. gavin newsom has a podcast. bernie sanders and alexandria because io cortez are on the road doing these rallies. people are trying to cash and alexandria ocasio-cortez are on the road doing these rallies. there is this huge void right now and the party feels leaderless and rudderless. host: would you put cory booker in that category? guest: a lot of democrats were really impressed with what he did this week. a lot of people also say it was a stunt and how memorable will this be but right now democrats are looking for someone who will be that fighter and step into

that role and i think cory booker certainly got a lot of attention this week for his filibuster. host: sylvia in virginia. independent. caller: thank you. i was wondering about his doctors, when they were asked they said he was cognitively fit. are they being paid big money to say that? we still don't know -- there are many kind of dementias. we still don't know what is wrong with president biden. thank you. guest: a lot of people feel that way. his doctors came out and said he is able to handle the office of the presidency, more than able to. there is this question. that is why journalists like myself were trying to figure out what was going on, but we are also not doctors. we cannot do -- we cannot say what a doctor can say. in looking at him, people say

people with these cognitive abilities and decline have good days and bad days and i think we saw one of the bad days play out in that debate in june. host: going back to your argument about not connecting, you write this in the book and i wonder if this was related to th "noonger able to defend his own record he expected harris to protect his legacy. whether she won or lost the election he thought she would only harm him by publicly distancing herself from him, especially during ae that would be watched by millions of americans. the extent she wanted to forge her own path, biden had no interest in giving her room to he needed just three words to convey how much all of that mattered to him, 'no daylight, kid'biden said." host: he called her the day --

guest: he called her the day of the debate and said no daylight. that is why a lot of democrats were frustrated and wanted to find out why she was not trying to distance herself from the president. there was pressure from him. at the same time there was this multitiered narrative going on, i think among staff they said you can distance yourself as needed. i think the two principles themselves had this agreement where they -- where she would not distance herself from the president. i think that hurt her in the end. even the people on her team were frustrated by this. they felt like she should have said this is how i would do things differently. she tried to put a little bit of distance between herself and the president but it never amounted to much. there was that big moment on the view in the final couple of weeks of the campaign where she

was asked if she would do anything differently and she said she would not. her aides are backstage and at the campaign headquarters scratching their heads because they had planned for a moment like that and practice for it and her answer was going to be something radically different. host: janet, democratic caller, welcome to the conversation. caller: this amie, i wish we had biden back in office. are you going to write a book about trump? look at what is happening to our country. which are, i hate to say it, christian nationalists, who somebody called in and compared to nazi-ism and fascism. and not only that, trump is an authoritarian. write a book about him. i wish to god we had a normal president like biden. host: all right, jamming.

amie parnes? guest: we have a lot of president trump in this book, and some of it not very flattering. there are times in the campaign where we see that his campaign is slightly spinning out of control and we write about that. and so, i think we, you know, our job as journalists is to call balls and strikes on both sides. i know a lot of people want to pay attention to the train wreck that we write about in this book, about the democratic party, but we do the same thing on the other side. there is a lot of trump in this book as well. host: what about those moments when his campaign was -- seemed out of control? what did you find out? guest: there's one scene in particular, several scenes that play out. kamala harris does come in after the switch his campaign is sort of taken aback. they didn't expect she would come in. suddenly she is surging in the polls.

he sees that she is gaining a lot of momentum. she has these bigger rallies, president biden was not able to kind of garner that attention. and she's doing that and has this really big, exciting democratic national convention, and so, there is the thought that maybe he should shake of his campaign, and he brings in his former aides. people like corey lewandowski and he is wondering if he should mix things up, and what he ends up doing in the end is keeping the same team. team that really kept him -- it was a tightly-run campaign by susie wiles. and for a moment you think that he is about to fire everybody and we kind of take you inside those moments to show you his frustration. host: how did president trump decide on jd vance? talk about that decision-making. guest: yeah, we also take you from the first time into those meetings. his meeting with jd vance.

he really felt a kinship with him, but it was down to vance and marco rubio, the senator, from florida. and he liked rubio, but i think he felt more of a connection with vance. so, we show you how jd vance kind of really makes this pitch to trump about, you know, how he really believes in the movement and take you inside that meeting. and how he kind of lobbies. there was a really big lobbying effort going on on his behalf, and there is one scene in particular on trump's airplane where you see kind of a fight brewing between lindsey graham, the senator from south carolina, and jason miller, a senior trump advisor. and lindsey graham is really pushing for his friend, marco rubio, his colleague. and on the other side jason miller is pushing for vance. and there is also this lobbying

effort happening right on the plane, you know? people are texting vance in real time, saying this is all playing out and the president is watching it all play out in front of him and he enjoys the theater and is relishing it. so, we have those scenes in the book as well? -- as well. host: and now the relationship. we are not even 100 days into this new administration, but what you learning about their relationship? guest: it is still a decent one, but i think what was interesting recently, obviously with the signal is that -- signal chat is that there is a little bit of daylight between the two of them, and obviously jd vance has his own political ambitions, which will kind of run counter to the president's political ambitions, so it will be interesting to see how that plays out. host: host: patty in atlantic city.

your turn for? ,? caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i want to say how much i appreciate c-span and the reason i want to make a comment, a question about president biden, but i want to say about the media, and i am a big fan of jonathan allen and you. i see you on the shows and so forth i think that all of the morning shows should have a half-hour of community input and let the viewers call in and ask questions, because there is not a lot of listening to the public now by the media and there is a lot of talking of the media to each other, and i think the media needs to listen. and that leads me to my focus on biden. you know, i don't understand. i really want to say this to the media, that the focus on biden, is understandable. he is the president, but president biden has been a

jokester since the beginning of time. now he is old. and it just appears like he is, you know, maybe i do not think he has dementia. i think that the media focused so much on joe biden, but what about donald trump? i mean, dancing, staring blankly, dancing to the ymca? the lies, the g6 pardons. with russia, you know, there were just so many things that the media could have focused on with trump, yet every little thing that president biden says was just analyzed and analyzed, and the democrats did it to themselves. host: patty, i will jump in. amie parnes? guest: i agree with you on the media point. i do think that media and lawmakers and everyone involved in our world clearly needs to do

a better job listening and, you know, stop looking at the polls and stop listening to each other in our echo chamber. i think democrats certainly learned that message. but i do think that also as i said before real journalists, they don't take sides. they call balls and strikes as they see them. and that is sort of with the aim is. right now it is very divisive political universe, a very divisive media landscape. but i want to journalism school, where they encourage you to shoot straight down the middle and that has always been my aim. when i get attacked by the left or the right it means -- or both -- and sometimes that happens on the same date -- it means i'm doing my job. i encourage other journalists to do the same. host: alex in delaware, a republican. caller: hello? host: good morning to you, alex.

we are listening to you. caller: i was just wondering about when kamala harris was running for office at her convention they all said that she moved ahead of trump, and then when he had the debate with trump, she moved morehead with trump. and come to find out the end of the day, now they are saying she was never even close to him, ever. host: amie parnes, is that true? guest: when it came to the election she had a very good chance of winning, but i think she failed to on certain levels. i think some of it is not her fault, obviously she inherited a campaign. she was obviously on the campaign at the bottom of the ticket, it was really joe biden's campaign. she inherited his team, and i think that coming out, and the limited timeframe, obviously it worked against her. a lot of people on her team actually felt if they had more

time they could have won. it will certainly close, but obviously i think that president trump at the time ran a tighter, better campaign, like it or not. host: economic news coming out right now, u.s. payrolls rise by 220,000 in march. unemployment rate increases to 4.2%. i'm sharing this with utah, as a question about the economy and the role it played in this last election, the roller continues to play for politicians. guest: yeah, the stock market yesterday will certainly -- i was hearing from republicans who are really upset about the turn of events and what has happened on tariffs. there is frustration brewing among republicans that president trump did campaign on the economy and there seems to be a focus elsewhere on other things. so i think that clearly people are paying attention. republicans are paying attention

and when lawmakers go back to their districts for the easter break i think they're going to hear from a lot of their constituents about how unhappy they are when it comes to tariffs and other things. but this is something that president trump campaigned on also, on tariffs. i think it will be interesting to see how this plays out, but certainly he is one to look at the headlines and the optics of something, and i'm curious to see if he rolls back some of what he has put out there in recent weeks. host: judith in pennsylvania. let's hear from you. judith in pennsylvania, democratic caller. you are up. caller: yes, i'm here. ms. parnes, i think this is a really poor timing on writing a book, which are beastly you had to have started months ago. disparaging president biden, handing fodor to president trump

, which, he doesn't need, because all he does is badmouth president biden. host: judith, how do you respond? amie parnes has made this argument a couple of times. it is the report's jobs to call borel -- balls and strikes and she was reporting what she was hearing from sources. caller: she is playing a game with an older man's disability, actually. and writing a book, putting it out, practically reading the whole book to us now on your set their, it is an insult to my husband, his service, to me, and my family. host: why, judith? why is it an insult? caller: because it hands trump a whole lot more.

now i'm sure you will hear him repeat a lot of what is in this book. host: right heard your point. amie parnes, ride you write the books you have written with jonathan allen over the years? guest: first of all, i would like to just respond to the fact that we didn't even report this book. we didn't even sign a contract to do this book until 50 days or 70 days out from the election, and we didn't even start really reporting the book until after the election. so anyone who thinks we were sitting on any information, my job is a day job at the hill. editors would be frustrated and i would be frustrated at itself for holding onto any information, so let's just put that out there. you were not sitting on anything. we did the bulk of our reporting after the election. which was coming out, just a couple of months ago. we write these books because, as i said, our job is to show people what happened, what they

did wrong, what they did right, and we use these books we have written, and my co-author and i, this is our third campaign book and our fourth book in total, but we write these books to give people a guidebook and a playbook on what they can do. we are not really just looking back. we are looking forward. democrats can read this book, can pick up this book as they could with "shattered," and learn what they did wrong and this could help them in the future. and it has. we speak to college students all the time about, you know, messaging and grassroots efforts and all of these things. and there are lessons to be learned from this book. and i think that if you pick it up you will see that everyone can gain something from reading this book. host: what lessons do you think kamala harris learned and her running mate tim walz? and will we see them again as leading the party? guest: i think that they are still in this postmortem stay trying to figure out what went

wrong, but i certainly think they learned some things about messaging and grassroots. i kept hearing even in real time that they had a ground game, a stronger count -- stronger ground game then president trump. they had better resources. all of this was not right, and it was things -- podcasting, for example, played a huge role for president trump. he took a lot of advantage of getting in there, relying on his son, barron trump, which we report for the first time, asking his youngest son to help with podcasting and setting up podcasts. so, he was willing to kind of, you know, do things that were different from his last campaign, and i think in certain ways democrats have been running the same playbook and did not learn their lesson from 2020 when they did win, and certainly from 2016. but i do think they are certainly trying to piece together what happened, and i do

think we will see kamala harris in the future. she is trying to decide right now if she is going to run for governor of california. tim walz, we are seeing him out there more. he wants to play a role in the democratic party. we are going to be hearing from them in the days and months to come. host: amie parnes is a senior political correspondent at the hill. you can find her reporting at thehill.com. the new book, "fight: inside the wildest battle for the white house."

thanks being here. we are here with senator james lankford. he's here to talk to us about his book, turnaround. welcome i wanted to